Ripe fruit preferred

Fall, the season of colors: Leaves turn red, yellow, and brown. The disappearance of the color green and the simultaneous appearance of these other colors are also signs of ripening fruit. A team led by Bernhard Kr-utler at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) has now determined that the breakdown of chlorophyll in ripening apples and pears produces the same decomposition products as those in brightly colored leaves. As the researchers report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, these colorless decomposition products, called nonfluorescing chlorophyll catabolytes (NCC), are highly active antioxidants—making them potentially very...

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